Learn to Count

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  learn to count

Inspiration

I've always found it interesting how technology has changed and shaped everyones lives as it has evolved and each generation has grown up with something new. However, when trying to think of an idea for this challenge I kept focusing on ideas for older kids and it wasn't until I sat down with a close friend and their children whilst they were counting together that I realized that both learning of technology and numbers could be combined.

What it does

This Alexa skill does what it says on the tin and helps your kid to learn to count. Alexa will say a number and you either repeat or say the next number to continue. There are 3 modes: easy, medium and hard.

Easy: Requires the student to repeat the number alexa has said.

Medium: Requires the student to say the following number to Alexas.

Hard: Is the same as medium but misses out some numbers.

How I built it

I built the skill using Lambda and Alexa Skill Kit (ASK). I used the trivia blueprint and reverse engineered the code to come up with an individual solution.

Challenges I ran into

I'm not too familiar with nodejs so it took a lot of initial work to understand the syntax and get working code. At this point I decided to rather than start from scratch I would use the trivia blueprint and break it down slowly. This meant I started with a working project and as I made changes it was easy for me to see where the errors were introduced. As I continued and gained more of an understanding of how it worked the errors became further apart.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud of how much I have learned through this project some of which included nodejs, incorporating state changes, using an mp3 within the skill.

What I learned

I learned how to use 'Monitoring' in Lambda to look at the logs and find out more information into what the cause of any error was. This helped a lot when trying to understand why something in particular was causing a problem and ultimately helped find a solution.

What's next for Learn to Count

The next step is to get the skill to retain the highest number the student has counted to and allow this to be recalled in later sessions. Once this has been implemented then their progress can be monitored. Another additional feature is to create more modes that are even harder and aim towards the older kids. This would include modes that have sequences and you have to guess the next number in the sequence.

Built With

• alexa
• lamda
• node.js